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A total of 255 of parliament’s 329 members took part in the vote, which was scheduled to take place at 9:00 pm local but began well after midnight after last-minute changes to appease political parties, AFP reported.

They approved 15 ministers out of a prospective 22-seat cabinet, with seven ministries still empty.

Among the names passed were sensitive portfolios including the ministers of finance, interior, defense, health, electricity, and others.

Army chief of staff Othman al-Ghanemi will become Interior Minister and the national football team’s ex-coach Adnan Dirjal passed as Youth and Sports Minister.

Ali Allawi, a former minister, and university professor will take over as Finance Minister.

Parliament rejected Kadhimi’s nominees for trade, culture, justice, agriculture, and immigration, and did not vote on the sensitive oil or foreign affairs posts, delaying them for another session.

Mustafa Kadhimi was nominated in April, months after his predecessor Adel Abdel Mahdi stepped down – the first time a premier has resigned before the end of his term since the US-led invasion 2003.

The new government is set to hold early elections, but Kadhimi admitted it would face a litany of other challenges: navigating an economic crisis spurred by oil price crashes and the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

“I am honored and privileged to be charged with forming the government during the transitional period and having to deal with the current crises that only exacerbated since the overthrow of the authoritarian regime in 2003,” he told gathered MPs.

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In an extraordinary parliamentary session, Iraq parliament members voted in favor of a resolution that calls for ending presence of US military forces in the country. The resolution’s main aim is to get the US to withdraw some 5,000 US troops present in different parts of Iraq.

The vote comes two days after a US airstrike killed Iranian Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, dramatically increasing regional tensions.

The Iraqi resolution specifically calls for ending an agreement in which Washington sent troops to Iraq more than four years ago to help in the fight against the Daesh terrorist group.

The Iraqi lawmakers, citing Articles 59 and 109 of the Constitution, in line with their national and regulatory responsibilities as representatives to safeguard the security and sovereignty of Iraq, had earlier signed a four-point bill as follows:

Firstly, the central government in Baghdad is obliged to cancel its request to the US-led military coalition, which was purportedly fighting Daesh terrorists on the ground, now that military operations have ended in the country, and victory over Daesh has been achieved. The Iraqi government should, therefore, put an end to the presence of any foreign troops and prevent the use of Iraqi airspace.

Secondly, the government and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces must announce the number of foreign trainers they need, along with their locations, responsibilities, and duration of their contracts.

Thirdly, the Iraqi foreign minister, on behalf of the government, must turn to the United Nations Security Council to file a complaint against the United States for violations of Iraqi sovereignty and security.

Fourthly, the Iraqi government has been required to conduct a thorough investigation into the recent US airstrike in Baghdad and inform parliament of its results within seven days of the date of approval of this bill.

Finally, the plan comes into force once it obtains parliamentary approval.

Earlier in the day, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had said, “The end of the malign US presence in West Asia has begun” as the US president’s ramped-up rhetoric against Iran followed the US assassination of the top Iranian general in Iraq.

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The law consists of 50 articles that were passed and agreed upon by all the members of the parliament. Iran News quotes the report of Tehran Times.

This is while that, previously, Iraqi parliamentarians had passed just some parts and articles of the law. Now, by the passage of the new election law, some previous mechanisms in the election have been removed and replaced with new ones.

The law consists of nine chapters, as follows: (I) Definitions and purposes; (II) The right to elect; (III) The right to nominate; (IV) Electoral districts; (V) Electoral system; (VI) Voter resignation; (VII) Electoral campaign; (VIII) Judicial rules (IX) General rules.

The fact is that the most important and prominent features of the new electoral law lie in Articles 15 and 16. What these articles refer to is, in fact, development in electoral mechanisms, which did not exist before, but now, with the passage of the new law, will be applied to all future elections. Experts and observers in the Iraqi political scene refer to Articles 15 and 16 as the “spirit of the new law”.

According to the articles, the new election law allows voters to vote for specific candidates instead of party lists, with each candidate representing an electoral district than a province. Therefore, experts believe that the approval of the articles will increase the chances of individuals to run for parliament.

Under the law, the country will be divided into various electoral districts based on the data provided by the Ministry of Planning, and Iraqi voters elect individual lawmakers instead of choosing from party lists and have each member of parliament represent a certain electoral district instead of groups of legislators representing entire provinces.

The new law states that each province with a population of more than 100,000 is considered as an electoral district, while provinces with a population of less than 100,000 constitute an electoral district along with neighboring provinces.

The new election law requires that running for parliament individually should be conducted in an electoral district, not through electoral lists, and the candidate who wins the most votes will be declared the winner of the election. Another point in the law is the allocation of at least 25% of the seats in the parliament to women.

It can be concluded that one of the obvious developments of the Iraqi election law is the change in the electoral mechanism from a list approach to individual one. This means that individuals will have more chances to enter the parliament compared to past elections rather than those who are affiliated with political parties and groups.

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The new election law changes each of the Iraq 18 provinces into several electoral districts, with one legislator elected per 100,000 people, AP reported.

It also prevents parties from running on unified lists, which in the past has helped them easily sweep all the seats in a specific province. Instead, seats will go to whoever gets the most votes in the electoral districts.

Drafting a new election law has been a key demand for the hundreds of protesters who’ve taken to the streets in Baghdad and south since Oct. 1.

The current election law — in place for over a decade — has consistently given a majority of seats in the legislature to the political groups shunned by the protest movement.

Like the previous law, the new one allocates at least a quarter of the parliament’s seats to women. A quota is also reserved for the country’s religious minorities, including Christians and Yazidis.

Most Kurdish and some Sunni Arab legislators boycotted Tuesday’s meeting in opposition to changing the law.

Last month, Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani emphasized his support for the demonstrators. He called for a new election law that would restore public confidence in the system and give voters the opportunity to bring “new faces” to power.

Iraq’s 329-member parliament was elected in May 2018. The vote is held every four years, but the protesters have been demanding early elections.

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In an interview with the Mehr news agency published on Monday, Hassan Danaeefar said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has always wanted peace, welfare and progress for Iraq and also peaceful life for all Iraqi groups.”

The former ambassador also noted that despite what the enemies claim, Iran enjoys “credibility” and not “influence” in Iraq.

A group of rioters stormed into the Islamic Republic’s diplomatic mission in Najaf on November 27 and set it ablaze. They also replaced the Iranian flag with an Iraqi one. Reportedly, the consulate had already been evacuated of its staff.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali al-Hakim apologized to the Islamic Republic for the incident.

During a phone call on November 28, Hakim told Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that his country was committed to protecting Iran’s diplomatic missions and their staff in Iraq, according to Press TV.

Iranian Ambassador to Baghdad Iraj Masjedi said on November 28 that the attack was aimed at damaging relations between Iran and Iraq.

“Definitely, the objective behind setting fire on Iran’s consulate in Najaf is damaging good and brotherly relations between the two neighboring countries of Iran and Iraq by certain foreign and internal elements in Iraq,” the ambassador remarked.

Masjedi noted that a good relationship between Iran and Iraq has made certain countries in the region angry.

He called on the Iranian people to practice self-restraint, noting that actions done by a limited number of rioters do not reflect the behavior of the Iraqi people.

Iranian Ambassador to London Hamid Baeidinejad said in a tweet on November 29 that British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has expressed concern over the attack on Iran’s consulate in the Iraqi city of Najaf.

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In a statement on Friday, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, Iraq’s PM, said he “listened with great concern” to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s sermon and made his decision about resignation in response to the cleric’s remarks.

“I will submit to parliament an official memorandum resigning from the current prime minister so that the parliament can review its choices,” he said.

“Everyone knows that I had previously suggested this option (to resign) during public and formal statements.”

Abdul-Mahdi was appointed Iraq’s fifth prime minister since 2003 as a consensus candidate following months of political wrangling between rival political blocs.

In his Friday remarks, the grand Ayatollah called on protesters to “separate their ranks from non-peaceful individuals and cooperate on shunning saboteurs” abusing the peaceful protests.

The top cleric also urged security forces to avoid attacking demonstrations of peaceful nature.

He warned that “enemies and their levers” are planning to “plunge the country into internal strife” and bring the country back to the “era of dictatorship” – in an apparent reference to the rule of Saddam Hussein.

Nearly two months of protests have rocked primarily the capital city of Baghdad and southern areas of Iraq.

The protesters have expressed frustration with the failing economy and have demanded political and anti-corruption reforms.

The rallies have, however, turned into violent confrontations on numerous occasions, with reports alleging that certain foreign-backed elements have been seeking to wreak havoc in the country.

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